She Doesn't Need Healing

We stopped going to church when Julia was a baby.

Not because we had lost faith, in fact, for me at least, this was a time of intense faith and closeness with God, but just not in a church building, and not surrounded by a lot of Christians.

It was the Christians we stopped going to church because of. Specifically the Christians who kept offering to pray for Julia to be healed.

We seemed to make them uncomfortable with this baby of ours who was different, this baby who wasn't perfectly healthy, wasn't just "fine."  They didn't seem to know what to do with us. Our presence was causing them to have to think about their God and their faith in a way they were not comfortable with - so instead they did the one thing they knew how to do, they offered to pray for healing.

"We are praying for her to be healed."
"We are praying God heals her."
"We have faith God will heal her."
 On and on and on, heal, heal, heal.

You would think these offers of healing prayer would have brought us comfort, but they did not. They brought pain and confusion - because it felt like rejection - like we were unacceptable "as is" - we needed to change, or she needed to be changed, before we could be embraced.

These offers also made me uncomfortable because somewhere deep inside my reeling, confused and sleep deprived newborn-mom brain, I knew Julia's healing was not what we needed.

You pray for healing when the diagnosis is a disease.

But Julia was not diagnosed with a disease.

Basically Julia was diagnosed with "this is just how she was made."

I didn't know exactly what you pray for when the diagnosis is "God made her this way," but  "healing" didn't feel right.

What would we be asking she be healed from?  The very blueprints God used to create her? Would we go before God and ask that he change her very being to make it easier on us? I cringe even now at the thought.  I didn't know much in those early days, but I knew I did not want her changed.

I also knew I needed more from my God then a "fix."

I needed a god who does more than just take away hard things, more than a "genie" god randomly granting wishes. I needed a god who would help me IN this hard thing and WITH this hard thing, not just out of it. If all you believe your god can do is take away pain then that isn't enough for me, that isn't my god. Because I found myself experiencing for the first time a pain I didn't want taken away. So how does that work? God has to be more than a fixer of pain or nothing makes sense - because I see a lot of pain in this world that hasn't been taken away. So what does that say then about God if your faith in him and his goodness depend solely on the removal of what we think is hard or wrong?

That's just too simple for this beautiful heartbreaking life.

I'm not a biblical scholar, but I KNOW my God did not promise us a cake walk in this life (John 16:33). So why is a cake walk exactly what we beg Him for the moment hard things appear for ourselves or others? It doesn't add up.

When Julia was about three years old we cautiously started going to church again thanks to the recommendation of friends and family who loved us and knew what we were wrestling with in regards to other Christians. We found a church where the motto is "Me too" - basically a general statement of acceptance for everyone - come as you are - you don't need to get better to be here - we are all the same - we all need grace.  It felt like the kind of place where they might say "Hey, Julia is pretty awesome!"  Rather than "Hey, Julia needs to be healed."  It's been a good home for us.

I remember one Sunday morning in particular, our pastor referenced a verse from Romans chapter 8 where Paul writes about being more than conquerors through Christ. That phrase "more than" - why did Paul write that? Why not just conquerors? Conquering seems pretty good to me. Because, our pastor explained, you are a conqueror when your challenges are gone, but you are MORE THAN a conqueror when you live victoriously with your challenges still present.

There it is!!!!!!!!
That is my verse!! (Romans 8:37)
And that is my God!!!!!!

That Sunday morning our pastor gave words to what I had been trying to figure out all of these years about how I understood God. That was why I was so uncomfortable with the "healing" stuff: I don't need (nor want) these challenges removed, I have a God who makes me victorious with my challenges, while I am still very much in the hard stuff.

So, this is what I have come to understand about Julia and healing over the past seven years:
It isn't Julia who needs healing. It is the rest of us.  Julia is a precious catalyst for God to heal some of our deep brokenness. The brokenness that causes us to fear and reject what is different and weak and vulnerable.

Please know that I am not against prayers for healing. I do it all the time. I've just learned that often we are too specific in what we are asking God to heal, too specific and usually off base.

Don't pray for her to change, pray for us to embrace her as she is.
Don't pray for her to change, pray for the community to shift how they view her.
Don't pray for her to change, pray for yourselves to change how you understand hard things.

Don't pray for her to be healed, pray for my healing and pray for your own:

Heal me from my selfishness.
Heal me from my insecurities.
Heal me from my need to control.
Heal me from my fear of hard things.
Heal me so that when hard things come I will stand firm, I will move towards, 

and I will be MORE THAN.

"In all these things we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS through him who loved us." - Romans 8:37

Is It Working?

Two weeks ago Julia went green and started medical marijuana (Haleigh's Hope to be exact) to treat her seizures.

First and foremost, we've received TONS of support - mountains, mountain ranges of support for this decision - and for that we are incredibly humbled and grateful and super boosted up! Thank you support!

In the past couple of days many of our mountains-of-support have been asking us the million dollar question: So, is it working????

And my answer, which, because I am a pleaser, I so desperately want to provide is... Ummm, I think so?

I hate being vague, but this is a tough question to answer at this point.

Tough for a few reasons:

1. Julia is non-verbal. The non-verbal issue doesn't get a ton of air time from me, sometimes I even forget she is non-verbal because she is so great at finding ways to communicate her needs. But in moments like this when I would so love to pick her brain and ask her "HOW DO YOU FEEL????" I am reminded (frustratingly) that we don't have this avenue of clear communication and understanding available to us. So we do our best to decipher and interpret her behavior to determine how she might be feeling.  For example: She seemed calm today. Oh that's great! Calm is great! Wait, unless she is calm because she is sick. Do you think she is sick, did she act sick?  Or was it a good calm like calm because the marijuana is working? What kind of calm are we talking about????
And well, it's an imperfect science to say the least.

2. It's only been two weeks and she is on a tiny, tiny dose.  I think we will need more time and possible tweaking of both the amount and CBD:THC ratio to land on the optimal dosage for Jules - and well, you can't do much to rush time, trust me, I've tried. So the plan is we will call her MMJ doc (I don't know if that's what this doctor wants to be referred as, but in our house she's the MMJ doc), we will call her on Monday, give her all of our impressions and observations, and see how she wants to proceed. (Side note: a few people have asked me how this whole thing works with our other doctors - and all I can say is that both our pediatrician and neurologist work for large health care companies and are not allowed to give much feedback on our MMJ journey - so we are just keeping them informed but not getting any sort of guidance from them - I hope one day that will change.)

3. Julia doesn't have a ton of seizures (thank you Jesus!). I wrote about this before, but Julia is a little different than most of the kids currently using medical marijuana for seizures in that she doesn't have uncontrollable seizures - nor does she have daily seizures, even off of medications. Basically she is prone to having seizures because of her unique brain and she has them frequently enough to need to be on something to try to prevent them. But she does not have them frequently enough that I can tell after two weeks whether or not there has been a decrease in seizure activity.  We have chosen to use medical marijuana as a treatment option because we don't like the side effects of other pharmaceutical anti-seizure medication she has been on for the past seven years AND because it is an option for us here in Colorado. We wish this was an option for every family in every state to decide upon.  Many families have packed up their lives and moved to Colorado to give their kiddos a chance on medical marijuana - mostly because nothing else has worked.  We hope that through our pursuit of this option and in sharing our story, we can play a tiny part in making this option available for ALL families to try - no matter what state they live in!!!

So those are the reason it is hard to say for sure if it is working or not. But here is one more thing I can say for sure: It isn't making things worse!

Last month when Julia had her scary seizure that landed us in the ER and started the chain of events that led us to Haleigh's Hope, we had to temporarily re-start her on Keppra. One day on a very low dose of Keppra and she was a wreck. She could no longer walk - she lost all of her balance and couldn't take two steps without crashing. And her agitation skyrocketed. She was hitting herself and pulling out her hair, acting like it was painful to be in her own skin. It was heartbreaking to watch.

Two weeks into Haleigh's Hope (with Keppra gone again - yay!) she is walking like a champ, balanced and confident! And her agitation seems to be down. Oh and no seizures (which like I said before, doesn't tell us a ton, but no seizures is a heck of a lot better than some or many).

So that is how we are getting to our answer right now about if this is working for her... We think it is working because we aren't seeing awful side effects. We think this is working because we are maybe even seeing some positive side effects. And we think this is working because she is off all her other medications and hasn't had a seizure!

We can't know what tomorrow will bring, but for today will take that as a victory my friends! Indeed we will!


#haleighshope #marijuanaismedicine #legalizemedicalmarijuana #cureepilepsy

Why God? Why?

The other day my mom shared with me an interaction she'd had the night before with a friend at church. This friend, who knows about Julia, was telling my mom about another woman she knew who had a son with special needs and about how difficult life had been for this woman because she never was able to accept her son's challenges. She seemed sad and in a state of regret throughout her sons life, continuously asking the question "Why God? Why? What did I do to deserve this?"

I asked my mom how she responded to this story which sounded very sad and her answer surprised me, "Well," she said, "I told her, 'I understand, we ask the very same question: Why God? Why?'"

This threw me off for a second because this did not sound like my mom or the way my mom usually talks about Julia. But she went on...

"But I told her, we ask 'Why?' for a different reason. We ask 'Why God did you pick our family to receive such a blessing? Why God did you see us as worthy of your beautiful gift? Why God did you chose to change our lives in such a magnificent way through Julia?  Why God? Why? What did we ever do to deserve her?'"

"Mimi and Jules" photo by Steve Stanton

My heart nearly stopped beating.

Here was my precious mom, the woman who raised me and prepared me for this role, standing in her kitchen in front of me, speaking the most beautiful and important truths into me about who God is and how He cares for us. And reminding me, once again, that God is so good at loving us in far better ways than we could ever imagine, but we have to be willing to adjust our eyes to see it.

And I can imagine as I write this, how to some stranger's ears my sweet mom's words could sound like super religious, "church-y" jargon, or perhaps they could sound arrogant, like "look at how good we are doing with this whole thing, do it like us." But I promise that is not the case. Her words were genuine. Honest words from a humble and wise woman who feels blessed beyond her wildest imagination through the life of her little granddaughter. And she is grateful. Nothing more. Simply grateful.

Her honesty and gratitude are the result of realizing that being needed is not the burden our culture makes it out to be. And that dependency is not a curse. To be needed gives us purpose. Caring for another is when we are most alive. God gave us Julia and in doing so made all of us more fully alive.

How can that be anything but a blessing?  

Why God? Why? What did we ever do to deserve her?

Julia is Going Green

If all goes as planned, Julia will start medical marijuana on Monday. (Say that seven times fast.)

Medical marijuana on Monday. This is really happening.

Julia started taking anti-seizure medication when she was seven months old following her first seizure and diagnosis of Infantile Spasms. In the seven years since then she has tried 13 different pharmaceuticals and various combinations of those 13 different drugs to hold the seizures at bay.

I am not an expert on medical marijuana. If you have watched any of the CNN specials you know about as much as I do. I am an expert on Julia though, and what I know is that these pharmaceuticals are hard on her. Yes, in many cases they have done their job, they have controlled her seizures - and for that we are blessed. But at a cost. They have delayed her development, they make her clumsy and agitated, and we really don't know what they are actually doing to her little body now and in the long run. As much as the medical world would like you to believe the drugs they are prescribing our kids are safe the reality is we don't really know. There are no clinical trials for seven month old babies taking varying cocktails of anti-seizure medication for seven plus years... that data doesn't exist.

So as parents, the only true experts on our kids, we do the best we can.  And right now, in this particular case, that means giving Julia marijuana.

Most of the families who have preceded us in this decision to try medical marijuana have done so because other drugs have not worked and their child's seizures have continued uncontrolled, hundreds a day - it's no exaggeration.  In that desperate place you will try anything, literally anything - including moving your family across the country to Colorado, knowing you won't be able to leave once you start this drug - but you don't care, because when you watch your child seizing the only thing that matters to you is making it stop.

We are in a slightly different situation than most of the families I just described.

First, we already live in Colorado. We don't have to uproot and move to try this drug. We are here and it is a fairly easy option to pursue.

Second, Julia's seizures technically are under control with pharmaceuticals.  When she is on a medication, specifically Keppra, we don't see seizures.  Last fall she had a long stretch without seizures so we decided to wean her off of all medication due to our concern for what it was doing to her body. It was great to see her off all meds - her development flourished and her agitation went down - but after two months the seizures returned and we realized she will have to be on something to help hold them back.  We temporarily re-started the medication she was formerly on (Keppra) and right away saw her agitation and frustration increase.  We decided now is the time for medical marijuana.

So rather than doing this because nothing else works, we are doing this because we want to see if this works BETTER for her.  Could this be more than just a last ditch effort of desperation and instead just be a really good treatment option for us to explore? I'm thankful we have the opportunity to do this - I am hopeful we can be a part of leading the way for more families to have this as an option for their loved ones.

When we've talked about this decision with family and friends, we have received 99.9% positive responses. People are becoming more educated about marijuana as a treatment option for epilepsy. They are hearing the positive stories through the news and social media.

People who know our story and have watched Julia battle epilepsy respond to us with an enthusiastic "of course!" "That makes sense!" "Why wouldn't you try it?"

These are all reasonable people who know that:
1. Seizures are scary.
2. Pharmaceuticals are scary.
3. Pot isn't any scarier than seizures or pharmaceuticals.

To you 99.9% I say thank you!  Thank you for supporting us and other families in trying to find better and safer options for our kids.

To you other .01% out there, like I said, I'm not an expert, but let me try to respond to a few of the objections I've heard from you:

1. Has marijuana been researched?
Funny you would ask about research.

Have you also asked about the research on a 7 month old taking multiple anti-seizure medications? Have you asked about the research on a 13 month old taking the cocktail of keppra, topomax, and sabril?   How about keppra, zonegran, and banzel?  Keppra, valium, prednisone?

What does the research say about those combos neurologists put our kids on?  What does the research tell us about the long term effects of being on 13 different anti-seizure meds in the first seven years of life?

Nothing. The research says nothing.  It's a bit of a crap shoot to be honest.

Are you really concerned about research or are you just trying to block us?  Because if you really care - then join our cause and become an advocate for more research to be done on the effectiveness of medical marijuana and epilepsy. Start a movement, raise money, write your congressmen -you could be a hero!!!

2. Doesn't marijuana slow down the brain?
Well, that's kind of exactly the point.

Do you know what a seizure is? It's a bunch of neurons in the brain pulsing too fast.
Do you know what anti-seizure medicine does? It slows down the brain.

So naturally any type of treatment for a brain with neurons pulsing too fast would be to slow down the neurons in the brain that are pulsing too fast.  Brilliant!

The balancing act comes from trying to slow down the brain enough to avoid seizing but not so much that it creates a zombie child.

If what you are actually asking me is am I worried about what this drug could do to her in general? Then yes. Of course yes. And actually the question is insulting.

I'm her mom, I worry about everything.

I worry about her lips when they are dry, I worry about the fingernails she won't let me trim. I worry about wrinkles in her socks, wet diapers giving her a rash at night, and milk giving her gas pains. I worry about everything.

Most of all lately though, I worry about her dying during a seizure.

So yes, I am worried about starting a new medication - but welcome to parenthood where every decision you make haunts you because you love your kid so flippin' much.

3. I wouldn't take it.
Great, you don't have to!

But don't vote against it - you not wanting to take it isn't an excuse for you to block other people from having that option. That's just mean.

One day it could be you or someone you love asking for the support of the community so you can have access to a potentially life-saving treatment - you won't like people like yourself very much when that day comes.

4. I don't think teenagers should be smoking pot.
Great, neither do I.  But that's a different conversation now, isn't it? And if you can't see that it is a different conversation then I'm not sure I can help you.

5. I don't want marijuana to be legalized in my state.
Fine, but again, that's a different conversation isn't it?

If you want to clump legalized together with medical treatment then you are being ignorant - which is your choice, but your ignorance does hurt others.

You will keep voting against it because you think it is all the same. You will keep your arrogant mindset thinking it won't ever be you on the other side.

6. Is it safe?
SAFE? SAFE? Seriously you are asking me if this is SAFE?

None of this is SAFE.

We left the safety-zone seven years ago when she had her first seizure.  Seizures aren't safe.

Don't talk to me about safe, we don't have that luxury.

~~

I'm guessing the .01% won't even read this, but there you go anyway. That's what I have to say to the naysayers, it felt good to get that off my chest!

Back to the 99.9% of support out there - thank you for being with us on this latest phase of our journey. Your support means so much.

When I think about it we have so much to be thankful for right now.
Thank you God for Colorado.
Thank you God for voters who voted to approve this treatment option.
Thank you God for politicians I'm pretty sure I didn't even vote for who have made this a possibility for Jules.
Thank you God for this little green plant you created that is changing lives.

Medical marijuana on Monday - here we go.

So I Inhale

There are seasons on this parenting journey when the weight of what I do not know threatens to take me down.

When self-doubt and guilt link up, team up, gang up and have me barely able to breathe.

Have I done enough? I don't know.
Could I have done more? I don't know.
Should I have done differently? I don't know.

What if I had? I don't know.

Have we made the right choice about medication?
Have we made the right choice about therapy?
Have we made the right choice about school, about food, about friends, about going to the doctor or not going to the doctor, about discipline, about communication, about interactions and opportunities, about alternative treatments and second opinions.

Have we? Have we? Have we? I don't know.

And I'm going down.

The sliding doors of life are piling up on top of my chest and I'm struggling to catch my breath.
This season cannot last because I cannot last in this season.
It's me or the doubt - something has to give.

So in a desperate attempt to breathe again, I throw my last bit of strength into lifting the burden of what I do not know and I inhale what I know.

I inhale I love her.
I inhale I have done my best.
I inhale I am enough.
I inhale I cannot know the lives of what I did not choose. I can only know the life of my choices.
I inhale harder does not mean I chose wrong.
I inhale better does not equal easier.
I inhale grace for mistakes.
I inhale we will be okay.
I inhale we are okay.

I inhale. And I breathe again.

The Slippery Slope of "No Restorative Potential"

#potential

I find myself in an ongoing fight with Kaiser Permanente over their repeated use of the label "No Restorative Potential" in describing my seven year old daughter.

After calling their attention to this issue back in January in an Open Letter, they acknowledged that this was indeed very bad practice, they profusely apologized, feigned disgust and assured me they were making immediate changes to their language.  Eleven months later I received another denial letter, this time denying physical therapy and using the exact same language in justifying their denial: "No Restorative Potential."

I laid in bed last night unable to sleep - my heart racing with adrenaline, my stomach churning with distress.  Another fight, another battle - am I up for this? Do I let this one go? How much does this one really matter?

My conclusion - THIS MATTERS - A LOT!!!
And not just for Julia. This issue is bigger than Julia and her therapy.   This is about insurance companies deciding who is worthy and who is not.
This is about the way we value or devalue human life.
As humans then, THIS MATTERS TO ALL OF US!

Here is why:

In January occupational therapy was denied due to No Restorative Potential.
In November physical therapy was denied due to No Restorative Potential.

What comes next? Who is to say this stops with therapy?

When does it become:
The medication your doctor prescribed has been denied due to No Restorative Potential.
The tests your doctor ordered have been denied due to No Restorative Potential.
The appointment you booked has been denied due to No Restorative Potential.
The ER Admission you need has been denied due to No Restorative Potential.

How soon until these are the letters arriving in our mailbox?  How soon until No Restorative Potential means "not worthy of any of our resources?"

If Kaiser Permanente is so brazen to use this terminology in a written letter to us, how on earth do they categorize Julia behind the scenes?

"High cost, low return, resource suck?"
"The first to be cut off."
"Not worthy."
"Invaluable."
"Less than."

It's a slippery slope my friends.

And lest you read this with sympathy for our family but in the back of your mind are reassuring yourselves with thoughts like "well this is a child with special needs so this couldn't happen to me or to our family..." I have to ask you: REALLY?  How do you know? How do you know you are exempt from this slippery slope? Right now this is happening to kids on the more "severe" side of special needs, but what stops this from moving a little more towards "typical" and a little more towards "typical" and a little more towards "typical?"   Who is deciding on the criteria? I'm not, are you?

This label and these decisions from Kaiser were not based on Julia's current progress. Many of our dear friends who know Julia have cried out "Well they don't know her, they haven't seen all that she can do!" You are right - they don't know her, they don't need to know her. This is based on her diagnosis. A diagnosis from birth that I guess gives them permission to funnel her into the "No Restorative Potential" category. Kaiser hasn't done a recent evaluation to make this determination. No, her diagnosis is enough.  (Please note: I don't think this decision SHOULD be about performance, no one should have to audition for services - I'm just pointing out that they are basing it on a diagnosis and nothing else - which is also not okay.  The decision should be based on the fact that she is a human and she needs these services. Period.)

Do you know anyone with any diagnosis - aren't they more than that diagnosis?
Do you or someone you love have a diagnosis on your medical record which you would not want your worth based on?
Wouldn't you be outraged if decisions were made about the care of your loved one based solely on the existence of that diagnosis showing up on their medical record?
What if something you or your child or your loved one is being treated for now is suddenly deemed to make you "non-restorative" by the insurance powers at be.
Where does that leave you then?  In Julia's category.

"This doesn't affect me" or "this won't happen to me," are two of the most dangerous lies we can believe as a society. It is happening to another human being right now - if we are a village then it is also affecting you and happening to you.

Insurance companies are assigning varying levels of value to human beings and withholding resources from them based on those values. That is NOT OKAY!
Where is equality?  Where is co-existence?

"You don't measure up, you don't get the resources."

It's a slippery slope, it matters deeply, and we should all be concerned!

Not Salvageable

This past summer I did something I've never done before - I was a participant in group therapy.  As a therapist I have developed groups and led groups - but hypocritically I had never actually been IN a group.  So that's what I did. I spent twelve consecutive Monday evenings for two hours with a group of four people and a leader - and I worked on some stuff.

One of the assignments we were given to work on between sessions was to write about a story from our childhood that brought us pain and that we believe is still in some way negatively impacting us.

I wrote about a time in fourth grade when:

I got off the bus at my bus stop, turned to wave goodbye and a boy I liked said to me through the window "You are fat. You are ugly."  My smile and wave dropped and I turned away quickly, trying to pretend I hadn't seen it. But I had seen it. I had felt it. It happened. 

I also wrote:

The way I think this story negatively impacts me still today is in my distrust that people actually like me. I think I hold back and cautiously wait to find out how they really feel.

So that is what I had written for my assignment when I returned to group therapy the following Monday.

"Your assignment tonight," our leader explained, "is to repeatedly read your story out loud to the rest of us for five minutes. Just keep reading it."

Yikes - my story was kind of short - I should have added some context and descriptor words...this is going to be awkward.

But I did it. I read my painful childhood story out loud to my group for five minutes.  The first time through emotion caught in my throat and I heard little gasps from my supportive group members. The second time through the emotion was still there but less overt, no choking up.
By the tenth time reading this story I was over it!!! My painful childhood story was getting a little old! We get it already, he called you fat, it made you sad - let's move on!!!!!

When asked to describe what the process of reading my story out loud to the group was like I told them how repeating it over and over again caused it to lose it's power. I still felt sad for my fourth grade self, but the emotions were less complex than before. It didn't feel like it had as much control over me as it previously did, back when it was privately stored in my brain just for me to feel and fester over.

"We sure do like our stories," was our leaders response and I had a vision of Gollum hunched over The Ring, stroking it and calling it "My Precious." Yes, we sure do like our stories, even, and maybe especially our most painful, our most precious.

"Final part of the assignment," our group leader said, "rewrite the last part and rather than telling us the negative impact, tell us how this story has positively impacted you. You are who you are today because of your experiences, so who is to say that the positives about you right now don't come from your painful stories?  So how has this story positively shaped the person you have become?"

Whoa...wait a minute.  I now have to be thankful for being called fat and ugly??? What the heck?  I knew this was a mistake, I should have just kept leading groups. I don't want to do the hard work of being a participant. I DON'T WANT to be thankful for this story. I want to be hurt and damaged and bitter - maybe at best somewhat indifferent, but thankful - no thanks.

Reluctantly, and because I am a pleaser, I did the final part of the assignment.  I looked for something positive from my fat and ugly story - something to be thankful for.  And once I found it, I actually really believed it.

I guess this experience may have had a part  in shaping me to be sensitive towards others, to be more aware of the power of words and our need for encouragement from each other. I think of myself as an encourager, so that may be the good outcome from this experience, the part I can be thankful for.

Ahh,sweet. That felt kind of nice.  I think that was good for me. I feel - better!

But what does this have to do with anything really?  Why am I writing about this? Laurie resolves some childhood insecurities about being chubby and comes out thankful on the other side. Big deal.

The thing is I couldn't stop thinking about this exercise. Out of twelve weeks of therapy, this was the part that had the biggest impact on me. Especially what the leader had said about our stories, "We sure do love our stories."

Oh man, we totally do, I totally do. And I have some good ones. Being the mom of a child with special needs you rack up painful stories quickly. You don't have to go looking for them, or add exaggerations to the real thing, they are everywhere and they are bad!

Some of these stories I keep to myself, stroking them like Gollum with the Precious, giving bitterness permission to fester with every retelling in my head.  Other stories I whip out in situations when I want a reaction from others of shock or sympathy or rage in order to give my self-righteousness a justification to stick around. Wow, I sure do like my stories.

But, I wondered;
1. Is this healthy for me?  
Answer: Probably not.

2. Are there any stories I need to take a second look at, like my fat and ugly fourth grade story, and instead of letting it fester with negativity I should maybe try to find the blessing?
Answer: Yes, probably several - but for sure there is one. One obvious one, the big one. My Precious.

I was 39 weeks pregnant with Julia. Scheduled to be induced on Friday morning.  I went in to see my doctor on Wednesday for a quick check to make sure we were on schedule. It was the only appointment of my entire pregnancy I went to alone.  And the doctor said to me, "She may not be salvageable."  

Not SALVAGEABLE???? What in the world? What are you talking about? She's not a Geo Metro. She's a baby, my baby. My baby I am going to give birth to on Friday, and hold and love and adore. How can you say she may not be salvageable. No one has said anything like that to us up until now. Who uses this awful word???

I have held a grudge against this doctor for seven years for saying this to me. He frightened me in that office all alone. He made an already scary situation so much scarier. His words caused panic for all of us that we didn't need to be feeling at the time.

And I have allowed myself to be bitter over these five words.  Every birthday we've celebrated I've thought of him, "Ha, take that!"  Every big milestone we've hit I've wanted to send him a card with a picture saying "How's that for not salvageable?"

Oh, how we love our stories.

Okay, back to the assignment. Find the good. Find the good. Find the good in "not salvageable."

Oh my gosh, It is right there! It is so obvious and I am such a hypocrite.

The one consistent message I have had about life with Julia, (beyond that she is the best thing that ever happened to us and the joy of our lives), is that our journey as her parents has been easier than it might have been because we were told to expect to lose her.(Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!)  As a result of that warning
we have measured every moment with her as a gift, a gift we weren't sure we would receive. We've never viewed anything about Julia as a deficit, everything has been a glorious, glorious gain!

For seven years I have had these two parallel stories in my head: one about how an awful, insensitive doctor told us Julia might not be salvageable, the other about how our lives with Julia have been better because we dropped all expectations and simply celebrated the miracle of her being here. But I had never put the two together or recognized how the first contributed to the second being possible.

Julia Anne, age 7, love of my life

This story has now lost its' negative power. The bitterness has evaporated. I can honestly say now that I am thankful for it. Thankful for what in the moment was painful but led to a greater and more powerful gift. This story is what has been salvaged.

My doctor, in saying those five awful words to me blessed me.
In preparing me to lose everything, he actually set me up to be thankful for everything.

Thank you, doctor. (Please stop using the word salvageable when referring to human beings, but thank you.)